The Grace Year not-so-gracefully, in fact harshly, creates a world that brings the worst out of a misogynistic society and blasts it against feminist characters which consequently gives the readers a story filled with nightmares, dark possibilities, cruel repercussions, desperation for love & acceptance, sacrifices, and deaths alongside empathy, girls supporting-saving girls, finding a positive light, standing up against gendered expectations, and teaching what love really can be and can do.


🔅Dark, gritty, forest setting
🔅Chills by the horror vibes
🔅Survival desperation
🔅Misogynistic power play
🔅Fighting women stereotypes
🔅Forbidden romance
🔅Finding love again

Holy wowzers...I love dystopian books and this made my head spin!

When young girls reach the age of sixteen, they are shunned for a year from their patriarchal community in hopes that they will lose their "power". This year is referred to as The Grace Year, and none of them have any idea what happens during their seclusion because it's not something that's ever talked about.

Parts of this book really stood out to me. For example, it reminded me of The Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Power all combined together. It's just futuristic enough that I'm not nervous about it actually happening in real life (yet), and I admired the bravery that Tierney showed in her basic survival skills and knowledge of nature.

I didn't like the uneven timeline and wished it would have been spaced out more evenly. I also didn't like the role of most of the girls or the poachers. I understand that they provided the antagonism for the storyline, but I thought they were poorly developed and lacked any credibility.

The writing was excellent and I had a hard time putting the book down, but overall, I think the story fell a little flat and will (unfortunately) be a forgettable book for me.

This was such a quick read and I wasn't expecting it! I haven't read a Dystopia book in awhile because they were starting to feel all the same. This really brought back my love for dystopian books. I will be recommending this to my library and fellow readers. Cant wait for future books by Kim.

I. Loved. This. Book.
The only thing that would make me love this book more was if the romance was less focused. For me it really took away from the story. This book evoked a lot of emotions for me and was a compelling read. I couldn’t put it down once I started it. 4.75 stars

Wow! I absolutely loved this book. It was dark, suspenseful, & had a great plot. Tierney, the main character was strong and defiant, but she was also flawed and believable as a character. I am so glad I read this. It's going on my top 10 of 2019.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

Tierney's story is a dark and unfortunately not that hard to imagine world that is difficult to read at times but totally engrossing. With many haunting scenes and beautiful writing, this story is not for everyone as it is very violent and depressing. However, the ending was mostly satisfying and gave a sense of hope that change is possible.

Posted to Goodreads: Tierney James wants a life of freedom but in her hometown of Garner County girls are only valued as property. The women must learn their place and to enforce this lesson the men send all sixteen year old girls to an island where they will spend their Grace Year receiving their magic and rejecting it before settling down to become wives. Tierney must try to survive the Grace Year and the threat of poachers to return to town and try to make a change.

Every so often I read a book that is getting amazing buzz and I have to ask myself "Did I read the same book as everyone else?". Unfortunately, "Grace Year" was one of those books. This book about young women being manipulated by men and torturing each other never felt like a feminist novel about strong women for me. Instead, it felt like a novel where women were poisoned, tortured, manipulated, and punished for having a sexuality without there ever being any kind of hope of change. There is no message of strength but instead a book where even the main character just kind of has stuff happen to her without really finding her own voice. I think I can see what the author was trying to do with this book but, for me, it really missed it's mark.

I was hesitant to start this one. The advertising holds it up to some pretty strong stories I love and I always end up a little worried when they do that - but I was definitely surprised and impressed with this one.

It's a darker tale - of a year the girls spend away from their very controlling world. They must live together for one year and survive - in the wilderness with barely basic necessities. They have poachers outside the gates that are willing to kill them for their own food/money for the year. It's a cruel world - and the girls are young and naive and definitely get caught up in it.

I really enjoyed untangling all the threads of the story and guessing on where it was going. I loved the ending and how it all pulled together. I was completely entertained and thoroughly enjoyed this one.

I'm going to echo the "wow" of so many reviews that have preceded mine. The Grace Year wasn't an immediate hit for me-- in fact, I thought about DNF'ing it quite a few times throughout. The writing is consistently solid throughout, but from the point that they go into the woods, it feels very Lord of the Flies. At this point, it's important for me to mention that LOTF was the only book in high school that I refused to read, and I wrote my book report on why I refused to read it (I believe it had to do with me saying that we don't need to be subjected to gratuitously vivid depictions of violence in order to understand the lesson of the book). Just as I was ready to finally throw in my hat and move on, I got sucked in by the Ryker story line, which I would really have liked to see more of, given that the book covers a full year.
I can already hear the response: "but this is a feminist book! We don't NEED men to make the lives of women interesting". Agreed. But there's a reason most novels feature some sort of romance-- we're universally drawn to stories about love and attraction. Whether those stories be about hetero- or homo-sexual romantic liaisons, we crave them! Or, at least, I find that I can enjoy just about any genre, any degree of literary or philosophical pomp and circumstance, if there's romance involved.
Once that whole element was introduced, I became much more invested in the story, but still would've given it three stars. But then the end. WHOA.
So often, I read books that start out solid and sort of unravel as the story comes to its conclusion. Here is a rare book that ramps up as it heads toward its ending and, even better, it's not some schlocky 'twist' that we've come to expect from psychological thrillers. It's a heartfelt, but also very bittersweet, turn of events that I didn't see coming. People behave entirely out of character, going against societal norms in unexpected ways. This has to be the first time I've ever gone from feeling 'okay' about a book, to genuinely liking it a lot.

This is by far one of the best books I’ve read this year. The characters, the plot, the scenery was so perfectly done! If there was a way to describe it I would say it will be a sort of hunger games version for girls on steroids. Honestly, I think everyone should read this book. I found myself so immersed in this book that I didn’t even care how long the chapters were. All the stars! Loved it!

Wow, this book was one crazy ride. Even though it was a bit darker than I expected, I enjoyed reading The Grace Year immensely. It had the exactly right amount of danger, anger, girl power, love and feminisms I like in a book.

It was impossible to put down and I just had to continue reading. I haven't read anything this captivating in a while.

If you loved books like Handmaid's Tale, Hunger Games and Lord Of Flies, you will definitely love this one too.

WOW what an excellent book. It’s exciting, harrowing, and sad. This book was so scary but not like a horror movie, more like this could happen in real life. Ms Liggett took the idea of men being afraid of women and needing to control women and just made it her own. One of my favorite books this year.

It is described as lord of the flies meets a handmaids Tale and that is a very accurate description. Tierney is a tough, smart heroine. If you want a page-turning read then read this book.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for my ARC in exchange for my honest review.

If you only read ONE young adult book this year, it should be The Grace Year.
If you only read ONE dystopia this year, it should be The Grace Year.
Actually, just go read The Grace Year.

No one talks about what happens during The Grace Year - the year where every girl in the town of age sixteen is banished to the woods for a year to expel their foul magic. All they know is every girl goes - and not every girl returns. Isolated on a compound with few supplies, a darkness creeps amongst the girls. Is it their power? Is it something else?

As a child the only dystopia I was familiar with was The Handmaid's Tale, and it haunted me for decades. This is a book that I'd put in the same category, something I'll hand to my future daughter as she reaches teenhold to give her reflection of the world around us, the power of being a woman, and the danger of letting others hold your power for you.

The message. The prose. The undeniable parallels to the world around us.
Three things a timeless dystopia needs. Three things The Grace Year provides.

This book was great! It was hands down one of my favorite reads of the year. I would recommend it to anyone.

3.5 Stars
The Grace Year had some big (and probably unfair) shoes to fill with its comparisons to The Hunger Games, The Handmaid's Tale, and Lord of the Flies. Unfortunately, though not necessarily surprisingly, it didn't live up to those truly impossible standards. I think I may have loved this reading it in high school (which I don't fault the book for; it is YA after all), but now I need a little more depth. I didn't find myself attached to the characters, but I did find myself truly hating the antagonist. It's a good sign that I was able to feel so deeply about my dislike of her, but she seemed so "small potatoes" in the grand scheme of the book's world.
Speaking of which, the world was not given the time and care to fully develop and seemed a little slapped together to get to the Grace Year. The insta-love was a little...confusing and a lot annoying.
I definitely see where the comparisons I mentioned above come in because, like The Handmaid's Tale, this book is bleak and shockingly violent.
I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book: the foreshadowing is obvious, the pacing is weird, the world is underdeveloped, and yet there's something enticing about the book, about the resistance present in every small action, about the hope, and I found myself liking the book for the most part.

The Grace Year by Kim Liggett is a phenomenal dystopian book with feminist themes that I believe should be read by everyone. I loved how Tierney narrates the story and her voice and growth. The story was a little slow in parts, but it definitely built into a great ending.

4.5*

I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest and fair review.

BOOK REPORT for The Grace Year by Kim Liggett

Cover Story: Misleading?
BFF Charm: Destiny's Child
Swoonworthy Scale: 4
Talky Talk: Compelling
Bonus Factors: Lord of the Flies, Perspective
Anti-Bonus Factor: Misogyny
Relationship Status: Viva La Revolution

Cover Story: Misleading?

This bubblegum pink cover does not fit its insides. I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that this wasn't some cover designer's complete ineptitude and that this juxtaposition is the point and the statement it wants to make? But, honestly, it does throw me a bit. My favorite touch, though is the red ribbon decaying into a trail of blood, and that kind of macabre feels fitting. In my mind, this cover should be a close-up shot of the hollow of a tree in the woods with a ribbon turning into blood near some crushed flowers, as the language of flowers is a big part of the book (and this pink version does have a nod to the flowers with the faint outline).

The Deal:

It’s tradition. The women in Garner County spend their sixteenth years in the wilderness, banished from their homes, while they release their “magic” so they can return to be obedient, plain wives and laborers. You aren’t supposed to talk about what happens to you during your grace year, even when you watch as the women who return, year after year, come back broken, starved, missing bits of ears, fingers, or limbs. But the other outcome is worse: plenty don’t come back at all.

Tierney has spent her childhood trying to discover more about what she’s walking into, but there’s nothing that can prepare her for what she finds when she walks through the front gate and gets locked into the compound. If she survives starvation, she may be attacked and skinned by poachers who sell parts of the girls as "restorative" medicine. If she steers clear of poachers, she has her fellow girls to contend with (and one in particular wants her dead).

Can Tierney survive the year and make it home? More importantly, with everything she’s learning about herself, her friends, and her society, does she even want to?

BFF Charm: Destiny's Child



Tierney might not consider herself a survivor right off, but she is! She's always planned to be a laborer instead of a wife, because she doesn’t think she has the temperament to be a good, proper spouse. It's good to know your strengths and weaknesses. She’s curious and intelligent, and her father (who always wanted a son) taught her many practical outdoorsy skills, which come in handy during her grace year. I would totally be her friend, especially if she could help me build a fire and find food! Of course, her practicality and unwillingness to "give in" to her "magic" make her a prime target for the Regina George of the group, so I’d have to have quite a strength of character to stick by her side (but that’s what besties do best!).

Swoonworthy Scale: 4

The romance in this book is too tough to talk about without spoiling things, and I think it’s better to go in with no foreknowledge, so I’m going to have to plead the fifth. Sorry! We can discuss in the comments if you’ve read it!

Talky Talk: Compelling

While reading, I don’t know if it worked in my favor or not that I am one of the few people out there who has not read or watched The Handmaid’s Tale. (I’ve tried to read it twice, but I just don’t like Atwood’s writing style.) I’ve seen plenty of readers calling The Grace Year twenty-nineteen's answer to Atwood’s classic, and while I haven’t read it, I do know the gist of that story, so I can see why they do so. It’s an undisclosed point of time (there’s nothing to say this is an alternate world to ours, or our past or our future); a claustrophobic community (Tierney’s home of Garner County is one isolated village, and it’s impossible to tell if there are other counties like theirs all over or if the rest of the world is free); and, a tale about the subjugation of women. Liggett’s writing and pacing were compelling. If you’ve learned anything about me over the last few years, it will not surprise you that I wasted good sleeping hours staying up to read this book. #noregrets

It’s a powerful story, and very sobering when you think that there are women right now who are experiencing this suffocating patriarchy in many different forms. I was enraged and scared, hopeful and awed at the resilience of the female spirit. I loved this line:

“We hurt each other because it’s the only way we’re permitted to show our anger. When our choices are taken from us, the fire builds within. Sometimes I feel like we might burn down the world to cindery bits, with our love, our rage, and everything in between.”

Was I completely bowled over by the book itself? I don’t think so. I feel like a lot of the visceral reactions we as readers are having right now is because of our current political and societal climate, and how we're relating to what we're seeing on a personal level (especially when it seems like many of our current leaders would in fact look to this book as a how-to manual). Putting that aside…it’s a really good dystopian novel; it didn’t change my life, but that’s okay. It may be an eye-opener for an actual teen who hasn’t been introduced, quite yet, to all the worst ways we can treat one another (or, you know, for the one who can’t stand Atwood).

Bonus Factor: Lord of the Flies



So, if you’ve been aboard the hype train, you’ll know The Grace Year is also being compared to Lord of the Flies. Once the “magical” sixteen-year-olds are separated from the rest of the community, it becomes a real dog-eat-dog world. The social politics of a group forced to interact for survival are endlessly fascinating; more so when I personally don't have to be in it myself (getting thirty-three people to agree on the same things is impossible). The entire compound where the ladies are trapped is designed to be as uncomfortable as possible, and factions—and cracks—quickly begin to form within the teens. Why can’t we all just get along?! (Well, you’ll see why.)

Bonus Factor: Perspective



One pervasive theme in this book is that things aren’t always what they seem. Tierney goes into her grace year thinking one way about certain things—her town, her family, herself—and comes out with her eyes wide open. She was certainly more self-aware, beforehand, than many of her fellow grace year girls, but she still missed so much.

Anti-Bonus Factor: Misogyny



I mean, of COURSE this is an anti-bonus factor. This book is infuriating and scary and exhausting. Why are some people so horrible, but why does nothing about this story even surprise me anymore? Tierney is as jaded as we are, and I can’t blame her for it:

“Amy Dumont. Delicate, sweet. She would make for a docile wife, but her hips are too narrow, beddable to be sure, but not sturdy enough to withstand childbirth. Of course, some men like breakable things.

They like to break them.”

Relationship Status: Viva La Revolution

Let me know when you’re ready to say enough is enough, Book. I will be right there with you, pitchfork in hand, ready to burn this mother to the ground.

Literary Matchmaking:



• For more girls trapped together on a small island and horrible things hanging out in the periphery that want to get them, you should be reading Wilder Girls.

• This whole idea of a group of teens having to survive a harsh experience that misguided adults force on them? Yep, sounds like this is just up Suzanne Collins’ alley. How long has it been since you read The Hunger Games?

• The factions within Red Rising are not afraid to get brutal, but they are just as trapped by their circumstances as the grace year girls.

The hyper for this book was huge! Even after it was published, the book continued to wow and awe any audience I saw. I was so afraid this book would not live up to the hype.

I should not have been afraid. I loved this book. It was one of the few YA books recently that has held up to the high standards I use when reviewing. I loved the feminist lens, the power of the girls, and the thrill of the adventure.

Wow this book was twisted!!! I’m going to give trigger warning but I feel like someone should of given me warning that this book would induce panic and anxiety. Just think .... Lord of The Files but with girls instead. Intense and that ending was..... hmmmm it has me at a list of words.

This had a lot going for it, but the pace threw me off and it had one of my most hated tropes..so a middle of the road 3 star is where we land. It's smart; conventional enough of a plot that it's easy to sink right into the story, but unique enough that it didn't feel like another paint-by-number "dystopian"